Robert Butler, Director of "The Cage," Is Dead at 95

Image: Paramount / Memory Alpha (Starlog) / Unsplash

NOVEMBER 13, 2023 – He made one stop with Star Trek, but it was an historic one. He directed pilot episodes for several television series and won two Emmy Awards. One of those pilots was the first for Star Trek: The Original Series. Robert Butler, director of “The Cage,” has died at the age of 95.

Butler’s film and television directorial career spans more than sixty years, following an English degree from UCLA and a stint in an army band. According to Variety, he joined the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) in 1959, the same year in which he launched is career as a director with an episode of Hennesey. He would go on to direct pilots and other episodes of shows such as Hogan’s Heroes, The Twilight Zone, Batman, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, and Mission: Impossible.

 Memory Alpha notes that Gene Roddenberry brought Butler in to direct “The Cage” after he had directed episodes of Roddenberry’s series The Lieutenant and an episode of Have Gun – Will Travel which Roddenberry had written. After “The Cage,” though, Butler moved on, not being a science fiction fan and due to dissatisfaction with Star Trek and Roddenberry’s production decisions.

Butler would eventually garner Emmys for outstanding directing, for the pilot of The Blue Knight, in 1973, and for the premiere of Hill Street Blues, in 1981. In 2015, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Television Direction from the DGA.

DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter said in a statement, “Few directors have changed the face of television as much as Bob did — his impact on the medium is truly immeasurable and this loss to our Guild is deeply felt.”

Please join us in offering condolences to the friends and family of Robert Butler, and head over to Variety for more on his life and career.